A Look Back at our SOCAP Diversity & Impact Gathering

As we enter the winter season approaching the end of the year, we wanted to reflect on one of the highlights of the previous season. In October, we attended SOCAP19 in San Francisco. As every year, this impact investing conference created an amazing space for connecting to other change-makers, sharing information and hearing from industry … more

Founder Spotlight: Cindy Mi of VIPKid

Here in the US, the fable of the dropout-turned-tech-billionaire is a familiar one. But it doesn’t usually bring to mind a young Chinese woman reinventing her country’s foreign-language education system. Meet Cindy Mi, the 35-year-old founder and CEO of the online teaching platform VIPKid, who’s bringing new life–and considerable business savvy–to the bootstrap stereotype. Hailing … more

Diversity as a Driver For Innovation

Yes, it actually does matter

Photo by Alex Holyoake on Unsplash

It’s 2019 and people still treat diversity building in their organization as a checking-the-box exercise. If you are still applying the Rooney Rule or saying things like “we need to fill our quota,” you’re getting it all wrong.

What do I mean by diversity? I’m not just talking about the obvious gender and ethnic diversity, I’m also referring to diversity of thought that is born out of having different experiences: education, work experiences and life experiences.

The data is compounding showing that diversity yields better performance and better innovation. From the board level to workforce composition, the yields are higher and challenging thought yields higher performance and more novel outputs.

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It’s Time for Tech to Step Up

There are many sad truths about the state of tech today: It is still an industry that is not inclusive to minorities and women (with job requisites even asking for “Caucasian only” applicants) The ‘grow at all costs’ has led to extreme waste and unsustainable practices which sometimes leave public markets holding the bag of … more

The importance of depth in a tech startup ecosystem

Kauffman Foundation, SURGE, Blink, Global Entrepreneurship Network (Startup Genome), among others all offer individual rankings for the entrepreneurial ecosystems across various regions. Each includes a measure of the density of either high-growth companies or mature ones. The fact is both are important indicators that can also influence another metric — the quality and strength of the workforce.

Given that workers currently spend a median of 4.6 years at a given job (and for ages 25-34 only 3.2 years), in deciding to relocate for a specific opportunity, people often look at what their next jobs may may be within that market. A tipping point occurs for many growing ecosystems such as Chicago and Austin such that there are so many opportunities that attracting talent becomes easier and the population growth accelerates. These opportunities need not only be within startups but often include more mature businesses as well. The transference of work talent spills over in both directions and they catalyze each other.

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